McCaul, an Austin Republican who chairs the Homeland Security Oversight, Investigations and Management subcommittee, said the measure was necessary to protect the nation’s security from a “dysfunctional” agency.

“The simple fact is DHS is dysfunctional and there are doubts it can carry out its core mission of protecting the homeland,” said McCaul, an Austin Republican whose district stretches into Harris County.

McCaul’s oversight subcommittee has found that the DHS has overlapping programs which waste taxpayer dollars, low morale across the department and numerous acts of misconduct in many of the DHS offices, such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

In the fourth subcommittee hearing on the subject, McCaul summed up the goals of the newly introduced bill this way:

“In order to create ‘One DHS,’ greater attention and focus needs to be placed on the issues we have highlighted over the past two months. Resolving the management issues such as developing a clear and focused strategy in line with budget allocations, technology integration and eliminating waste and duplication in the department are issues I believe will go a long way to improving workforce morale.”

The Act proposes a 2 year long top to bottom review by a 10 member advisory panel. The expected cost of the panel is approximately $5 million to be funded from the DHS budget so that taxpayers are not affected.

The Act is a bipartisan effort, co-sponsored by Rep. Bill Keating of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the subcommittee.